wildfire
[ wahyld-fahyuh r ]
/ ˈwaɪldˌfaɪər /
noun
a highly flammable composition, as Greek fire, difficult to extinguish when ignited, formerly used in warfare.
any large fire that spreads rapidly and is hard to extinguish.
sheet lightning, unaccompanied by thunder.
the ignis fatuus or a similar light.
Plant Pathology. a disease of tobacco and soybeans, characterized by brown, necrotic spots, each surrounded by a yellow band, on the leaves and caused by a bacterium, Pseudomonas tabaci.
Pathology Obsolete. erysipelas or some similar disease.
RELATED CONTENT
Cheesecake, Racketeering, And Other Trending Words On Dictionary.comFood, food, glorious food made its presence known in a big way on this Thanksgiving week edition of the Dictionary.com Trending Words list. From a rarely used plural for beef to a beef over the proper way to describe cheesecake, here's what had you searching!
The Original Memes (Before Memes)The word meme, coined in 1976 by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, goes way beyond social-media pixels. Meme captures the concept of “cultural transmission” of ideas in general, where customs and ideas spread from brain to brain. Which means memes have been around longer than Success Kid or Kermit sipping tea. Wildfire ideas have been around as long as humans have—in fact, discovering fire is …
RELATED WORDS
flame, bonfire, conflagration, inferno, blaze, light, flash, flare, combustion, burning, holocaust, flames, flaming, brightness
Nearby words
- wilder, thornton,
- wilder, thornton niven,
- wilderness,
- wilderness area,
- wilderness road,
- wildflower,
- wildfowl,
- wilding,
- wildish,
- wildland
Origin of wildfire
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Examples from the Web for wildfire
wildfire
/ (ˈwaɪldˌfaɪə) /
noun
a highly flammable material, such as Greek fire, formerly used in warfare
- a raging and uncontrollable fire
- anything that is disseminated quickly (esp in the phrase spread like wildfire)
lightning without audible thunder
another name for will-o'-the-wisp
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
wildfire
Old English, from wild (adj.) + fire (n.). Originally in reference to spreading skin diseases; meaning "destructive fire" is attested from early 12c.; figurative sense is recorded from c.1300.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
wildfire
see spread like wildfire.
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.